There are a number of new replacement screens available on eBay for around £30.00, you must however ensure that you buy one with the same model number.

The model number is shown on the back of the screen and will be something like 001/004 (in this case).

The first thing you will need to do is remove the back cover and take out the battery, once you have done this you will require the use of an FM opening tool.

Next you need to remove the six screws, there is one in each corner and one down each side about half way down.

Once they have all been removed, take off the back top surrounding layer (black frame).

You should now be able to slide out the inner layer, ensuring that the ports do not get caught on the metal frame. This proved to be a bit of a fiddle at first, as it needs to be pulled out and pushed down at the same time.

The back of the LCD screen is quite sticky, so may require a bit of force to remove it. Just make sure you have disconnected the screen first.

At this point you may find that the mesh that covers the speaker isn’t present on the new screen. This is simply stuck to the back of the screen and can be lifted off with a bit of effort and stuck to the new one.

Now you can replace the old screen with the new one, re-connect it and start putting the whole thing back together again.

I definitely recommended going down the replacement screen route, as it’s a cheap and easy way to get your BlackBerry fully functioning again.

Unfortunately after downloading and installing, I encountered a problem which meant it could not connect and fetch any updates.

After a few Google searches I eventually found that entering the APN details for o2 would solve this problem, so headed over to Options – Advanced Options – TCP and entered the following details:

APN: wap.o2.co.uk
Username for APN: o2wap
Password for APN: password

Upon returning to Seesmic I was glad to see that the application was now functioning as expected.

It wasn’t until about an hour later however, that I discovered my web browser and google maps applications (amongst others) were no longer working.

After a bit of trial and error I found that changing the default browser configuration (Options – Advanced Options – Browser) from Internet Browser to O2 Active soon solved the problem.

It’s recommended that you contact O2 with regards to any data charges if you’re worried about any possible costs before continuing with the setup described below. The steps taken assume that you are using the O2 network and using Windows Vista OS.

1. Ensure you have Desktop Manager installed (v4.2 is recommended) and running, then connect your handset via the USB cable.
2. Click Start > Control Panel > Device Manager. There will be two RIM devices shown under the ports section. Make a note of the ones in use (e.g. COM13, COM14).
3. Click Start > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center > Set up a connection or network.
4. Select Connect to the Internet and click Next.
5. We would like to Connect using a dial-up modem or ISDN (Dial-up).
6. The modem we want to use is a Standard Modem.
7. Enter *99# as the Dial-up phone number (Phone number your ISP gave you).
8. Enter faster as the User name (Name your ISP gave you) and password as the password.
9. You may want to check remember the password and give the connection a name at this point, such as BlackBerry.
10. Go back to the Network and Sharing Center (See step 3), select Connect to a network and choose the connection you have just created (e.g. BlackBerry Dial-up connection).
11. If it doesn’t work at this point, head over to your Control Panel (Start > Control Panel) and select Phone and Modem Options. Select the Standard Modem with the relevant comport from earlier (COM13, COM14), then click Properties > Advanced. In the Extra initialization commands box enter: at+cgdcont=1,”ip”,”mobile.o2.co.uk”.
12. Finally, try re-connecting following the directions in Step 10.

BlackBerry App World is the source for most of the apps that I download, finding myself scanning through looking for new applications that might prove useful.

There is a lot more trust in downloading from here, rather than browsing the internet and downloading from less trusted locations. It allows you to manage any of the paid for or free apps you have downloaded.

WordPress for BlackBerry allows me to quickly check the numerous blogs that I contribute to. It makes it easy to manage new comments or even start writing a new post (as I am doing this very minute by writing this).

This means I can manage most aspects of my blog whilst on the move and still have available a lot of the functionality of the browser based version.

The Internet Browser is something I often use to browse twitter more than anything. I still haven’t managed to find a client that functions well like they do on the iPhone.

Depending on the context of what I’m looking for I sometimes switch to using Opera Mini instead due to it’s improved rendering of graphical web pages with full CSS support and ability to view video content.

BlackBerry Messenger is a more recent addition to my collection, with the majority of my friends and contacts opting for the iPhone over the BlackBerry I’ve only recently started communicating through it.

It allows me to send and even broadcast free messages to the people on my contacts list. It’s a bit more subtle than MSN messenger as it can quite happily sit running in the background.

Google Mail reinforces the fact that I can’t get away from what I do in life, allowing me to be contacted via email, even when I’m not sat in front of my laptop.

It provides all the basic functionality of your standard web client and the browser based control panel. As far as I’m aware, this application, along with all the others from Google are only available directly from Google.

Google Maps id the last on my list and although isn’t used as frequently as the others is just as useful, especially if you’re in a situation where don’t have satellite navigation.

It makes available most of the features found on the web based version, including driving directions and geolocation. The introduction of Google Latitude also allows me to browse my list of friends and see where they are in the world – creepy!

So there you have it, my list of frequently used applications. If you would like to recommend any similar ones or use any of the above I’d be interested to hear what you have to say .